The sixth KF-21 Boramae prototype is making its maiden flight, and mass production will begin next year

The Korea Defense Acquisition Program Administration announced on June 28 that the sixth KF-21 Boramae prototype had successfully made its maiden flight.

The plane took off at 15:49 local time from the 3rd Training Pavilion in Sachon, South Gyeongsang Province, and flew for 33 minutes.

This is the first flight of the KF-21 aircraft model. Five previous prototypes had flown successfully, namely Prototype 1, 2, 3 and 5 with single seats and Prototype 4 with tandem seats.

The Korean government plans to continue verifying performance with the six prototypes through operational stability and electronic performance verification including active electronically scanned radar (AESA) and weapons tests.

Seoul said it will begin mass production of the KF-21 starting next year as the aircraft received temporary suitability for combat use last month.

If there are no problems with the performance verification process, it is planned to deliver the aircraft to the Korean Air Force (RoKAF) in 2026.

RoKAF plans to acquire 120 aircraft, including the first 40 in mass production, between 2026 and 2028.

After that, production will resume to 80 aircraft in 2032 to replace aging F-4 and F-5 fighters.

The KF-21 has a maximum speed of Mach 1.81 (2,200 km/h) and a range of 2,900 km.

The aircraft will be equipped with air-to-air weapons such as British Meteor missiles and German AIM-2000 missiles. Then air-to-ground weapons such as the American GBU-12, the Korean MK-82, and air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM).

Meanwhile, Indonesia, as a co-developer, is known to have not submitted plans to pay its arrears, Yonhap writes.

Indonesia will bear about 1.7 trillion won, or 20%, of the total development cost of 8.8 trillion won until 2026.

“However, after paying only 227.2 billion won in January 2019, they did not pay their share for nearly four years due to lack of budget, and then only paid 9.4 billion won in November last year and about 41.7 billion won in February this year,” he wrote. Korean media.